by James Oswald
‘Sorry, sir. Thought this was more important.’ She nodded at her laptop, then winced.
‘And people say I’m a lost cause …’ McLean walked over to the desk and peered at the screen. At first he thought it was a criminal record profile page, but the mug shot in the top right-hand corner didn’t look right. Then he saw the Wikipedia logo, and the title of the entry. Jane Louise Dee.
‘Mrs Saifre?’ He recalled the woman he’d met at Weatherly’s wake.
‘That’s what she calls herself these days, but this is who everyone remembers.’ Ritchie tapped the screen with the flat of her fingernail.
‘They do?’
‘Honestly. I thought you had a well-rounded education, sir. Jane Louise Dee. The Scottish Bill Gates. Invented half of the stuff that makes all our computer networks run properly?’
‘That’s her?’ McLean shook his head, feeling a slight rush of embarrassment as his mind went back to their conversation. He had heard of her, now that Ritchie mentioned it. Surprised how the name hadn’t meant anything to him when she’d handed him her card. His hand went up to the breast pocket on his jacket, the same one he’d been wearing that day. Sure enough, the card was still there. Just the name and that mobile phone number. Nothing else.
‘I interviewed her a while back. About Weatherly. At least I think I did.’ Ritchie pulled open her desk drawer and took out a large plastic pot of painkillers, shook it to see if there was anything left inside. It relinquished a pair of reluctant pills, washed down with a swig from a two-litre plastic water bottle. McLean noticed three more pill pots in the drawer before Ritchie closed it again.
‘You think you did? Aren’t you sure?’
‘Well, that’s the odd thing. Can’t find my notes anywhere. There’s nothing in the folder, nothing in my notebook. But this …’ Ritchie picked up a sheet of paper, bearing the logo of Weatherly Asset Management and a list of names, all scored out, with little annotations in Ritchie’s spidery handwriting. ‘This tells me I did. And I sort of remember it.’
‘Sort of?’ McLean asked.
‘It’s stupid. My head’s so thick most of the time. I’m sure I interviewed her. Just … Well … Can’t seem to remember any of the details other than coffee and biscuits.’
McLean could only sympathize. ‘I’ve had days like that.’ He took the sheet of paper from Ritchie’s damp grasp, peered at the names. ‘Gone through lists like this. After a while, asking the same questions, getting the same answers, it gets difficult to remember who said what to whom. Add in some Fife lurgy and it’s a miracle you even remembered her name.’ He dropped the sheet back on the top of an open investigation folder.
‘Still bugging me, sir. I should’ve had all this stuff finished ages ago. I mean, I know they closed down the case, but what with all the stuff in the press, and—’
‘Go home, Kirsty.’ McLean reached past the detective sergeant and gently eased down the lid of her laptop. The face of Jane Louise Dee stared at him as he did so, almost begging him not to be so cruel.
‘But my report—’
‘Can wait. You’re right. The Fiscal’s going to want another report now. We’ll have to reopen the investigation even though it won’t do us any good. But you’re no good to anyone here. You need rest. This’ll still be here for you when you get back.’
Ritchie looked up at him and sniffed. ‘Will it?’ she said. ‘That’s a shame. I was rather hoping it might all just go away.’
34
The thought of locking himself in his office and hiding behind the ever-growing stacks of paperwork there had rather lost its appeal after his conversation with Ritchie. McLean knew he had a brief respite before the powers that be read the Evening News and the shit hit the fan. If he was lucky, he might keep his job, but it was going to be an uncomfortable time. That was what his nocturnal visitor had said. Well, McLean wouldn’t starve if they kicked him out of the force, but his team deserved better. Maybe they could deal with the inevitable criticism by solving a completely unrelated case.
He headed for the small incident room they were using for the tattooed man investigation. It was just across the corridor from the larger room, where the Weatherly case had run its very short distance. Perhaps it would be reopened, perhaps not. But for now it was empty. Why he decided to go in, McLean couldn’t really be sure. There was no one else in there, which might have been a good reason if it weren’t for the fact that the other room would likely be empty as well.
At first, he didn’t even turn the lights on, just relied on the scant orange illumination coming in through the window wall from the street lamps beyond. The snow that had been just the occasional flurry all day was settling into something altogether heavier now that the light had gone, the temperature dropped. At least there wasn’t the strong wind to throw it all about this time.
A large conference table took up most of the centre of the room, desks pushed back to the walls. McLean ran a finger over the wooden surfaces as he walked slowly around the room. It was quiet in here, peaceful. He couldn’t remember a time recently when he’d been able to just sit and think. Or stand and think, for that matter. When he’d climbed to the top of the hill behind Weatherly’s house in Fife, perhaps? Despite being chased by a fold of Highland cattle.
He smiled to himself at the memory. They hadn’t really been chasing him, just curious as to what he was doing in their midst. If he’d not been in a hurry to get back, he’d probably have stood his ground, waited until they got used to him.
Still standing in semi-darkness, McLean finally realized what it was that he’d been staring at all this time, what his subconscious had probably made him come into this room for in the first place. The end wall was split in two, one half whiteboard still scrawled with notes and questions relating to Andrew Weatherly. The other half was corkboard, to which had been pinned a large-scale map of the city and the surrounding area.
Whether it was the map MacBride had pinned up in the room across the corridor, he couldn’t be sure. It didn’t really matter. It was a map and it was fairly new, so should be reasonably accurate. McLean flicked on the lights then crossed the room and crouched down, peering at the area to the south until he found Roslin and the river. Then he unpinned the map, folded it and carried it over to the big table, where he could see it without having to squat.
The bypass snaked around the city to the south, cutting it off from Loanhead, Bilston, Roslin and further still Penicuik. McLean traced the River North Esk with his finger, upstream from Dalkeith, Polton Mill and into Roslin Glen. Even with the overhead lights he had to peer closely to see the chapel and castle, identify the spot where they’d pulled the body out of the river. It annoyed him that they’d not already done this, and all because someone had nicked the map before they’d had a chance. Some way to run an investigation. No wonder Duguid thought so little of him.
McLean traced his finger further, finding Glencorse Barracks, the remains of the old gunpowder works, the railway cutting, the country park. Somewhere along there, their tattooed man, William Beaumont, had tumbled over the cliff and ended up in the river. At least that was the best guess he had. He’d been covered in scratches from the gorse bushes, so it was likely he’d been running. If someone had simply chucked him over the cliff to get rid of him, he’d not have had so many thorns in his legs and arms. So where had he come from? Couldn’t have been far, not in that weather, naked. No matter how terrified you might be, that kind of cold would slow you down soon enough.
Off to the northeast, Rosewell and Bonnyrigg were too far, and McLean doubted the man would have run naked through a populated area without at least someone noticing. It had to be closer in. His finger hovered over the complex of buildings that made up Rosskettle Hospital. It had been a psychiatric hospital, if memory served, but was closed now. Derelict. Probably worth going to have a look around, though. If the snow ever eased off.
McLean folded up the map, shoved it under his arm and left. Stepping into the corridor it felt like
his ears had popped. Noise flowed back that he hadn’t realized had been missing before, the quiet spell of the empty room broken.
‘Stealing again, McLean?’
He turned to see the portly form of Detective Chief Inspector Brooks filling the corridor. Bobbing along behind him, little DI Spence looked like he’d fit right in on The Muppet Show.
‘Didn’t think anyone was using it.’ McLean flapped the folded-up map against his thigh. ‘And someone lifted it out of my incident room anyway.’
‘Ah yes. Your mysterious tattooed man. How’s that going?’
‘We know who he is now. Know where he was last seen alive and where he died. Just need to fill in the gap between.’
Whatever Brooks had been expecting McLean to say, this obviously wasn’t it. He had closed the gap between them now. Sneered as he barged past, forcing McLean into the door to the smaller incident room. ‘Better hurry up then. I’d be surprised if you were still here by the end of the week.’
Not for the first time, he wondered why it was he persisted with the job. It wasn’t as if he needed the money, after all, and dealing with the likes of Dagwood and Brooks on a daily basis was an unusual kind of masochism. On the other hand, as he pinned the map back on to the wall in the small incident room, smoothing it over and tapping his finger on the tiny knot of buildings at Rosskettle, he couldn’t help but feel a little surge of excitement. This was the best part of the job. The hunt for clues, the slow puzzling out of just what had happened. And hopefully, when all was said and done, justice for the victim.
It was only as he stepped back from the board to get a better look at things that he realized he wasn’t alone in the room. A soft snore rose up from behind a large flat-screen monitor on a desk at the back of the room, next to the radiator. It gurgled at the end, transforming into a snort as Grumpy Bob awoke from his slumber. McLean glanced at his watch. Almost six already. Where had the day gone?
‘Evening, Bob. Making sure that chair doesn’t go anywhere, I see.’
Grumpy Bob stretched, yawned and scratched at the grey stubble on his cheek. ‘You know what it’s like with these internal reports, sir. Just dozed off thinking about the thing, let alone reading it.’
He picked up a sheaf of papers, stood with much creaking of joints and shuffled around the desk so that he could hand them over.
‘No thanks. You can keep it. I’ve no problems getting to sleep.’ McLean held up his hands to ward the document off. ‘What is it, anyway?’
‘Report from the boat team.’
‘Boat team?’
‘Aye, you know. Roslin Glen. The river.’
‘Oh, right. I didn’t think they’d get out in this weather.’
‘Can’t imagine they were all that pleased about it, but they went. Found something, too.’ Grumpy Bob handed over the file again, and this time McLean took it. There were some photographs, close-ups that hadn’t survived the laser printing process well.
‘The executive summary?’
‘It’s all couched in maybes and probabilities, but it’s pretty much where you and the lad thought it happened.’
McLean remembered the cliff, DC MacBride’s firm grip the only thing between him and painful death. ‘What’s the evidence like?’
‘Well, there’s lots of broken branches. Not conclusive, of course. Could’ve been made by anything. But they also found scraps of what they think are skin on the rocks at the water’s edge. Covered in snow, but then everything was. Samples have gone off to the lab. We should know by the morning if that’s what they are. Confirming it’s our man will take a little longer, but I can’t seen anyone else barking their shins on that side of the river any time recently.’
‘The east bank, I take it.’
‘That’s the chappy.’
McLean went back to the map, found a red marker pen and circled the spot.
‘What do you know about Rosskettle Hospital, Bob?’
Grumpy Bob scratched his head through thinning grey hair. ‘Rosskettle? Not much. Loony bin, wasn’t it?’
‘I think the preferred term is psychiatric hospital, Sergeant.’
‘Aye, well, it’s closed now, in’t it. They moved everyone to the new place out at Little France.’
‘Find out, can you? Only I think we need to pay it a visit first thing tomorrow.’
Grumpy Bob raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t you have to go see your favourite therapist tomorrow morning?’
McLean looked at his watch again, noting the day as well as the time. True enough, he was due his weekly waste of time with Matt Hilton at eight.
‘Sod that, Bob. I’ll go see if he’s in now. You never know, he might be able to shed some light on the hospital. And if not, then I’ll just have to tell him to reschedule. I’ll pick you up here at eight.’
Hilton was locking the door to his office when McLean turned the corner. He must have caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked up startled, a frightened, guilty expression on his face. McLean had seen that expression so many times before, usually on the faces of the innocent, those witnesses called in to give statements and other helpful citizens not used to being in the company of policemen. Criminals, at least the hardened kind, never worried about the laws they might be unknowingly breaking.
‘Tony. Hi. I wasn’t expecting to see you till tomorrow.’ Hilton covered his unease with a smile that made him look a little deranged. How long had he been working with the police? And yet he still had this slightly uncomfortable manner if you caught him off-guard. Either that or there was a dead body in his office he didn’t want anyone to know about.
‘Yes, about that. I was wondering if we might be able to reschedule.’ McLean watched the smile turn into a frown, cut off Hilton’s response before he could give it. ‘Also wanted to pick your brains about something. Rosskettle Hospital. You know it?’
Hilton managed to go from frown to hurt in a move that would have done an actor proud. ‘Know it? Certainly. I did a lot of my training there. Really sad when they closed it down, but the facilities were getting quite dated. And it’s so isolated. That’s why they put it there, of course. Back in the mid-nineteenth century, I think. When we used to lock up our problems and forget about them. Attitudes to mental illness have changed a bit since then, thankfully.’
‘Any idea what’s happened to the site?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Hilton finished locking his office door, shoved the keys in his pocket and picked up his heavy black briefcase. ‘Mind if we walk? Only I’ve got to get going.’
‘Of course.’ McLean stood to one side, let the psychiatrist past, then fell into step with him. ‘It’s still NHS Scotland, then?’
‘Actually, now you mention it, I think I did hear something about it being sold. Probably being turned into exclusive apartments or something. You thinking of heading out there, are you? That why you want to reschedule?’
‘It’s part of the investigation into the tattooed man. We reckon he fell off the cliff into the river not far from the hospital. There’s not many other places round there he could have come from. Unless someone drove him out there, of course.’
‘Clutching at straws, Inspector? That’s hardly like you.’
‘I prefer to think of it as being thorough. But I’d like to go at first light, if the snow’s cleared. I get the feeling the afternoon’s going to be mostly dealing with the press about bloody Andrew Weatherly.’
Hilton smiled at that. ‘Yes, I’d heard. Don’t really envy you.’ He stopped at the top of the stairs that would take him down to the back door and the staff car park. ‘Don’t worry about tomorrow. That’s fine. We’ll catch up next week. I’ll make some calls, ask about Rosskettle for you, too. Let you know if I find out anything useful.’
‘Thanks.’ McLean watched as the psychiatrist trotted down the stairs, surprised at him being actually helpful for a change. Perhaps that was all he needed, to be involved in something. A shame he had to be such a tit all the time.
‘T
hat you sorted for tomorrow then, sir?’ Grumpy Bob joined him at the railing, leaning over and peering down. For a moment McLean thought he was going to hawk and spit.
‘Eight sharp. I’ll pick you up from here. That you off for the day?’
‘Aye. Shift ended over an hour ago and it’s not like there’s any overtime these days. What about you?’
McLean had intended going back to his office and spending at least a couple of hours ploughing through forms. A couple of hours would inevitably become four, and then he’d finally go home and share his takeaway curry with a disapproving Mrs McCutcheon’s cat. That was what he’d intended doing.
‘Sod it, Bob. Fancy a pint?’
35
The early morning sun hung low in the southern sky, painting the glittering snow in shades of white and gold as McLean drove out of the city towards Dalkeith. He’d forgotten to put his shades back in the car after the last time he’d needed them, and was forced to squint to see anything ahead. Beside him in the passenger seat, Grumpy Bob had given up and just closed his eyes. Any excuse for forty winks; the man was a living Womble.
Climbing up on to the Midlothian plain, the roads were narrower, less frequently used and bordered on both sides by high banks that trapped the snow into deep drifts. McLean had often wondered why so many DCIs and superintendents drove big four by fours; he’d have given good money to be in one of them right now. As they neared the hospital though, the road became clearer, the snow turned to grey-black slush by heavy traffic. Turning the final corner to the entrance gate, he saw why.
The NHS Scotland sign was still there, proudly proclaiming the existence of Rosskettle Hospital, but alongside it a new sign had gone up. McLean had never heard of Price Developments. Apparently they were turning the site into a science and technology park, with funding from the EU and a dozen other quangos whose logos had probably cost a king’s ransom in taxpayers’ money to design. A barrier hung across the driveway, and a fluorescent-jacketed security guard approached with a clipboard and a frown as McLean pulled the car to a halt in front of it.